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Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Snow + Mud = FUN Cyclocross!

The opening weekend of the boulder county cyclocross season served us up a classic snow & mud gem. The DBC race on Saturday at the Arapahoe Ridge High school was the first (I have heard the last) race to be run at this venue. The course was mostly smooth flat grassy sections & 2 fairly steep short run ups. The few inches of snow quickly turned into a few inches of mud throughout most of the course. I joined fellow Redstoner Chris in the mud riddled Cat III race (although his heart wanted to be riding his new INTENSE SPIDER 29er-who can blame him). I sat in the top 10 for a few laps as I figured out the best lines & tried to keep the heart rate in check. My heart rate was staying pretty stable & I was glad to have done a XC MTB race the weekend before in preparation. As the race went on the group splintered a bit & we had 3 laps to go. I made a small effort to go off the front so I could ride the technical sections at my own pace. I got a small gap but with a ton of mud on the tires I crashed on a fast sweeping pavement left hander preceding a run up. The 2nd & 3rd place riders caught back on & my heart rate jumped as I bounced off the pavement. I tried to stay calm & sat 2nd wheel to let my heart rate come back down & size up the others. I was feeling pretty comfortable with 2 laps to go & on the last lap I attacked in a power sucking mud section. I created a 10 second gap & was riding the last few corners of the course much faster than the other 2 so I rolled in pretty easily for the win. Chris finished better than he will let you know but suffered mightily from a POOR/BALD tire choice. In what turned out to be great timing my front tire went flat while in the bike wash line. Saturday night I awoke to a nasty cough & had to skip the Sunday event. What a drag after spending most of Saturday cleaning & rebuilding the bike – o yeah, Dave I need some brake pads. Rumor has it that there are some pictures of Chris & I flopping around in the mud so stay tuned for those. I’m looking forward to the remaining weekends of limited travel & much racing. It looks like there will be some quality racing coming up with some big races & big names - get out there & ring those cow bells!!!